Karl Lagerfield: 'Call yourself an artist? Then you are second rate'

While France's new socialist president settles in, Chanel's Karl Lagerfeld decamps to Versailles to celebrate luxury, style and the Queen's jubilee.

BY Luke Leitch |
16 May 2012

Karl Lagerfeld leads the way after the Chanel Resort 2013 show at Versailles

The 1st
arrondissement
flutters with
tricolores
hoisted for François Hollande's inauguration, and the Parisian press steams about austerity and tax. Rue Cambon is blocked to traffic because - explains the fearsomely armed policeman there - of a demonstration by the frustrated far-Right supporters of Marine Le Pen.

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This, on Sunday night, was the scene outside the headquarters of France's most evocative fashion house, Chanel. But inside, in the studio tucked high behind Coco Chanel's famous mirrored staircase, where Karl Lagerfeld sits behind his sunglasses and a mirrored table heaped with bracelets, the only (faint) anxiety is of a different kind. From behind her black lace fan, Lagerfeld's long-time collaborator, Lady Amanda Harlech, explains they are in the middle of the "accessorisation process", the final tweak of Chanel's 2013 Cruise collection before it is shown tomorrow. "No, no," says Lagerfeld, 78, in his German-accented English, as a model wearing golden brothel-creepers and a pannier-skirted gown holds out her wrists, "I prefer the hand in the pocket. It must not become too ladylike." He waves one snakeskin-gloved hand, and adjustments are made.

Shown to only 200 guests (a few journalists, a smattering of celebrities including Vanessa Paradis, Tilda Swinton and Sam Taylor-Wood, and a slew of its best customers from around the world), the Cruise collection is Chanel's most theatrical show. Staged in a different spot every year, past venues include Los Angeles, Venice, and Cap d'Antibes. Its function, says Lagerfeld, is to appear as lavish as possible: "Today, on the internet, it is nice to see something that looks like a movie. Maybe 99 per cent of the people who see the clothes will never own them, but they can buy the lipstick or the perfume."

For Monday night's show, Chanel has secured Le Bosquet des Trois Fontaines, a water-garden grove in the grounds of Versailles, designed by Louis XIV in 1677, and only recently restored. The irony of using the Sun King's garden to show extravagantly expensive clothes to some of the world's richest people - all the night before the inauguration of a socialist president of France - is not lost on Lagerfeld. But he seems immune to it: "There has to be some enthusiasm. Life goes on… this is light-hearted, not the guillotine." Versailles was chosen a year ago and the show, he says, "is not about one government. The world of luxury is another world from that of daily life. This is what the French do best; perfume, champagne - luxury. These are the exports, so we better make an effort and not believe the world is all… just normal."

Chanel is privately owned and never releases figures, but estimates value its fashion and make-up businesses at £10billion to £13billion. Bruno Pavlovsky, its "président des activités mode", says that, despite the global downturn, "in the past three years we have been strong in our major countries - the States, Europe, Japan - and are seeing lots of new customers from Brazil, Asia - and China, of course." While that world of daily life struggles, high-fashion's parallel universe paradoxically prospers.

During my audience alongside Harlech at Chanel's top table, Lagerfeld zips through subjects as he contemplates his models and sips from a goblet of cola. The courtly references in the clothes, the double-C beauty spots and the candy-coloured wigs are all nods to
Le Grand Goût
- he knows so much about Versailles he reckons he could give tours - yet he says he detests period-costume fashion. "Forget about the past. If you think it was better, you are finished: out. We have to adapt to our time, as time does not adapt to us." Fashion, he says, should be about "frivolity - serious frivolity. I know a lot of people who were saved by frivolity, as the superficial part of life is very healthy." King Karl winks (I think) behind his shades as he rejects this nickname: "In fashion we have more queens than kings."

Queen-wise, he is looking forward to commentating for French television on the Diamond Jubilee. When he covered the wedding of the Duke and Duchess of Cambridge, he reports, "they had the highest rating they ever had". Although he was beastly - like everybody - about Princess Beatrice's hat, Her Majesty should anticipate nothing too scathing from Queen Karl. "England would not be the same without the Royal Family. If there are scandals, who cares? The Queen is like a monument and England without royalty would have less tourists. People complain about the money they cost, but they make even more money."

When the English models Georgia May Jagger and Cara Delevingne arrive, blushing and gossiping for their fittings, Lagerfeld leans over and says: "Quick-minded little girls like this, they do not exist in France. Not any more. If they are funny then they are not French."

The latest craze in fashion is to hold grand exhibitions - whether Louis Vuitton in Paris, Gucci in Florence or Prada vs Schiaparelli in New York. Lagerfeld airily dismisses it: "I am against museums and exhibitions in fashion. One woman said to me - "In my world, the world of art" - so I said: "Oh, don't you make dresses any more?" A thin smile and then: "If you call yourself an artist, then you are second-rate."

The Cannes Film Festival begins this evening, but Lagerfeld is unexcited. "The movies shown today are unrelated to the girls on the red carpet. It is grotesque… and you think of the Visconti movies, there was glamour in them." He adds of the red carpet: "Now, everyone is bought… Most of them (the actresses) have contracts [to wear the clothes]."

His chief passion is books: "Now, I have more books than I have shelves." Does he have time to read them? "Yes! I am a brain-bodybuilder. Schwarzenegger of the brain." He has never, he says, wanted to be anything more than a designer - or own his own company: "I am not a book-keeper." As I leave, model No 60-something arrives, wearing her pink-bobbed wig and that freshly applied Chanel beauty spot.

The next afternoon at Versailles, under a cloudless sky, the collagen-heavy crowd crunches across the gravel to their seats in the 16 specially built wooden pavilions that line the Trois Fontaines. Harpsichord muzak makes way to a pumping remix of Michael Jackson's
Thriller
, as 70 models in pannier skirts, ruffled mini-culottes and bouclé, long culottes, skin-tight swimwear and loose all-white sundresses make the circuit. Lagerfeld emerges, bows to rapturous applause, and then everybody boards a little train (from which one model flicks a cigarette butt on to a statue of Diogenes) to the after-party. Over oysters and champagne, nobody discusses politics. "Only Karl could arrange for the sun to come out for his show," one Chanel customer says, mid-oyster. The next morning, as helicopters hover over the 1st arrondissement for Hollande's arrival at the Élysée Palace, it starts to rain.